Wednesday, July 13, 2011

I followed my wife to a work junket in Las Vegas recently (where randomly enough, Ben Mezrich spoke and later ate steak at my dinner table), and I took a break to wander up and down the city's famous Strip. Architects and brainy types love Vegas because of the purity of its simulacra, its uber-meta-ness. I kinda agree. Vegas is so proudly...artificial. No one goes to Las Vegas because of anything inherent to its geography, besides maybe the hot weather. Las Vegas might as well exist at the bottom of the sea next to Rapture—as long as you could still fly there from LA in less than an hour, I doubt anyone would care. People go to Vegas because it's Vegas, and there's no place else like it.

That's why I've always been confused by the mind-boggling width of the Strip itself, which at around ten lanes seems to be stubbornly preoccupied with almighty transport as its main function—on paper. It's as if the city planners are still in denial about what the Strip really is: a huge adult amusement park and pedestrian haven for tourists from all over the world, all strolling up and down nursing their yard-long margaritas dangling from souvenir lanyards. Amusement parks don't have freeways running through them. So why not make the Strip feel more like the Disneyland of Sin that it is? See it narrowed!

explore the map

Las Vegas Strip (I)

I followed my wife to a work junket in Las Vegas recently (where randomly enough, Ben Mezrich spoke and later ate steak at my dinner table), and I took a break to wander up and down the city's famous Strip. Architects and brainy types love Vegas because of the purity of its simulacra, its uber-meta-ness. I kinda agree. Vegas is so proudly...artificial. No one goes to Las Vegas because of anything inherent to its geography, besides maybe the hot weather. Las Vegas might as well exist at the bottom of the sea next to Rapture—as long as you could still fly there from LA in less than an hour, I doubt anyone would care. People go to Vegas because it's Vegas, and there's no place else like it.

That's why I've always been confused by the mind-boggling width of the Strip itself, which at around ten lanes seems to be stubbornly preoccupied with almighty transport as its main function—on paper. It's as if the city planners are still in denial about what the Strip really is: a huge adult amusement park and pedestrian haven for tourists from all over the world, all strolling up and down nursing their yard-long margaritas dangling from souvenir lanyards. Amusement parks don't have freeways running through them. So why not make the Strip feel more like the Disneyland of Sin that it is? See it narrowed!